Want a clear homepage? Step 1: think.
Take the cork off your truth
So, last week we talked about the great translation problem.
And the brass tacks difference between FEATURES and BENNIES.
Or benefits, for those of you in the peanut gallery.
So, you want your homepage to speak in terms of the benefits, results, and outcomes you help your client get. Become. Or achieve.
Now, say you’re clear on the top 3 results you help your clients get. Say you’ve already brainstormed a list of 30 ways you help people improve, heal, or enrich their lives.
And if you haven’t made this “top 30 list” in awhile—or ever—here’s your invitation: please do this before you write your homepage. Or talk to anyone. Or write anything. This is ground zero for getting clear.
Can you go do that right after you read this?
And then, to make sure you’re not writing in language that just you and your invisible twin (who grew up next to you in the closet of your head) understand… show that list to someone else. Preferably someone who geeks out on marketing. And then ask them to put a check next to any results that people are willing to pay for.
Then look back over everything with checks, and pick the top 3 results you help people get.
If you don’t have someone like that in your life, pretend. And think about joining one of my upcoming production labs to get some support.
Now, a simple way to turn your results into snazzy, hot copy is to turn ‘em into a “pull question.” The basic formula here is: “Want XYZ?” or “Ready to ABC?”
And then, you can turn that question a “headline.”
I put these in quotes, because when you roll with Stella, you’re going to learn the lingo. There are no wallflowers in Stella’s neighborhood. We’re all Recovering Perfectionists here. And we’re all taking what we learn and putting it into action.
For an example of a “pull question” that’s ALSO a “headline,” see my homepage.
Want more clients, referrals, and joy?
See how that “pulls” a certain kind of potential client? The results I help my clients get are client-based (and therefore, money-based)… but I also promise more joy (and therefore, fun + play + simplicity), too.
Notice, too, that there’s a “pull question”… followed with my take on how to get it:
Quit Marketing and Learn to Tell the Truth.
In classroom teaching, we call this the “hook.” You’ve got to get people’s attention. Questions can work. Bold, simple statements can work. Flying in the face of expectations can work, too.
In this example, most people think that if you want more clients + referrals, you need to market more.
So I’m messing with expectations on this one.
Because my message is: marketing won’t save your butt.
(In fact, if I see one more business owner following the “marketing coloring book” without putting any of their heart or true voice into it, I may put my eye out with my mechanical pencil).
Taking the cork off your truth—and studying how to express it in a way that makes other people care + want to get more of it—WILL save your butt. And more.
But back to the lesson at hand. If you’re working on your homepage right now, tinker with the results you get in a “pull question” style headline. Then answer it with YOUR distinction. Something that YOU say all the time… or THINK all the time… that flies in the face of conventional wisdom.
If you wanna play, post the headline of your homepage here in comments, and let the workshopping begin. Or, if you’re a bluebird, fly on over to http://twitter.com/stellaorange and post it there.
Many thanks to Brent Schneeman for the Flickr Photostream of Things That Pop.
The great translation problem
You’ve got to give nice people what they want
There’s something that every business owner has.
A translation problem.
You speak, think, and dream in FEATURES.
And your clients are on the hunt for the BENNIES.
That’s benefits, for those of you in the sky box seats.
Benefits are what your work DOES for your ideal clients.
Makes ‘em richer.
Thinner.
Clearer.
Smarter about their finances.
Able to live out a dream they’ve always had.
Now, the features of your program or service are important, too.
But telling your audience about ‘em BEFORE you tell ‘em why they should care is a big, fat, common, heart-breaking mistake.
It’s like telling people the recipe to your chocolate chip cookies, while you hold the plate out in front of them.
They really just want the cookies.
“…and then I add the dark chocolate and macadamia nuts…”
So if you want to really nail your message, you’ve got to give the nice people what they want.
Side bar note if you like woo or are a coach: mind your language. Though you may be in the business of transformation, helping women connect with their true selves, or teaching executives how to thrive as leaders… this is not hot marketing lingo.
If you’re having trouble attracting clients (especially the kind that pay you gladly without questioning your rates), chances are that you aren’t translating into language that means much to the rest of us.
Now, I know that marketing and sales might seem gross to you right now. But do you really think that the coaches and teachers YOU admire don’t know how to market or sell? There is a way to do it without being selfish and manipulative.
Well, without being selfish, anyway.
But the truth is, another word for manipulation is influence. Leaders and teachers and masters manipulate us all the time. Because they understand how translating works. They get that to connect with your listeners, you can’t be focused on your ego. You must work to speak in words that connect, that move, and that convince.
Are you doing that in your marketing? How do you know?
Mighty thanks to olya for the Flickr Photostream cookies.
One of my favorite writing tips of all time
Write your marketing like you are writing a letter
This ain’t your first rodeo, is it honey?
You’re no spring chicken.
You’ve bought the home study kits. You’ve been “on the line” for all those marketing training calls.
Maybe you’ve even been in a program or two.
Heck, you might even have a big kahuna business or marketing coach, right here, right now!
That doesn’t mean Stella’s Laboratory isn’t here for you, too.
I’m all for marketing and business coaches. Many of them are fantastic, and worth every penny. Others, not so much.
But they aren’t your friendly neighborhood wordsmith. They aren’t working on the front lines of things like “message” and “point of view” and “finding your voice.”
No matter. Stella’s got your back.
And you know how you do something, without even realizing you’re doing it?
And then—you have this FLASH of insight. And then you peer deeper into what it is?
Man, dontcha just LOVE that?
So I was giving a talk last week on how to write a charming homepage. One of the things I teach my students in production labs is that you need to pick ONE person in your target market, and write to HER.
The effect is that she feels like you + she are having a conversation.
When you do it right, it’s this beautiful, intimate thing. You’re not in the same room. But that’s not what it FEELS like. It FEELS like you are whispering right to her.
Or even better: you’re in her head.
I realize I’m running the risk of sounding kind of creepy, aren’t I?
I’ll risk it.
The point is, that’s the way you want to write your newsletters, blogs, emails, and blog posts. All your marketing, really.
Not like you’ve got a bullhorn. And you’re screaming at the kind people.
But like you’ve taken the time to write them a letter.
That’s today’s tip. And it’s one of my favorites. Truly.
Write your marketing like you are writing a letter.
On your homepage, write a letter. (See my homepage, here. Feel free to use it as a template, in fact. I’d be flattered.)
In your free gift to encourage people to subscribe to your house mailing list, write a letter.
On your blog, write a letter.
In your next newsletter, before you announce news or promote an offer, write a letter.
This will protect you from the BULLHORN MARKETING VOICE. And, best of all, it will put you in the right frame of mind for making a real connection with your future clients.
Mighty thanks to avrdreamer for the flickr Photostream of the sign.
What’s your sausage?
Pull back the curtain!
You know that scene in the Wizard of Oz?
The one where Dorothy arrives at the Emerald City… and the wizard is being all intimidating and aloof… until Toto runs behind the curtain and finds this balding goofball, hiding behind his microphones?
That’s what we as service providers are called to do. Pull back the curtain. And show how the (ahem) proverbial sausage is made.
Look, I can teach you seven tricks from Sunday about how to write snappy copy.
But what I really want to show ya is how to amuse yourself so much that your joy and know-how is flippin’ CONTAGIOUS.
If there’s one thing I hope all my writing students learn from Stella, it’s this: your writing FORMULA is as important as your writing STATE.
That’s a little heady.
So let’s break it down.
Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to teach what you know.
Not from a place of desperation. Or practicality. Or even for a huff of the fumes of your own productivity.
And, for heaven’s sake, not from a place of MARKETING. Egads. Anything but that!
Rather, what if every word you wrote or spoke about your business came from the same spot that your favorite elementary school teacher taught from?
A place of wonder. Of awe. Of delight and enthusiasm. Of kindness and gentleness. Of guiding your flock to see some really cool stuff about this world. And to blow their minds about what’s possible.
Adults aren’t all that different from 10 year olds, you know. Most of us flippin’ LOVE field trips. And, believe it or not, your area of expertise is a field trip to the rest of us. We have no idea about the intricacies of your field.
We just want your sausage recipe.
So go ahead, let us see you geek out. Share your enthusiasm. Plumb the mysteries of your craft. Just leave the rest of us a step-by-step recipe for getting results.
Mighty thanks to txcrew for the photo of the Emerald City.
Oh, and in case you want MY sausage recipe: 1 pound ground pork, 1 teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper, 2 teaspoons toasted fennel seeds (slightly crushed), 3 tablespoons red wine (better taste it, just to be safe), 2 teaspoons chopped parsley, ½ teaspoon dried chile flakes. Mix well (don’t crush) with your hands. And make into meatballs, add to pasta sauce, fry it up as a patty. With thanks to Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food.
Is your website a dinosaur?
Has your website become an artifact?
There’s a curious phenomenon when it comes to websites.
At some point, your business outgrows your website. Maybe your target market has changed. Or the way you’ve worked with clients have shifted. Or your offers and programs have been totally redone.
But your website remains the same. An artifact of an earlier time in your business. Dinosaur bones.
When you find yourself in this boat, one of two things typically happen.
One, you bravely blaze ahead into writing new pages (but then your perfectionism flares up and you eddy out into a cycle of endless revisions, rewrites, and agony over whether it’s any good).
Two, you write “update website” on your To Do list. And that’s all you write. Until next month, you Rewrite “update website” on your To Do list again.
Now here’s the rub: all of this “not doing” is siphoning off a portion of your business building mojo.
Example: one of my Studio All Stars is an intuitive and coach, who’d recently made the decision to steer away from the feng shui work that she’d become famous for (she had her own TV show).
She rewrote her website with me this year, and she’s reported that walking into a room is a whole different experience. “I’m confident… ‘cuz my website rocks. It’s got my back.”
She reports: the process of creating a new website helped her get clear on how she helps her clients. And supercharged her excitement for her work.
For her, rewriting her website made it real.
And while I’m fond of telling business owners that they can go out and get new clients without a great website (which is true!), I totally get what she’s talking about.
There’s something to being in alignment with what you’re putting up in cyberspace.
So, does your website make you proud? Can you enter a room of strangers and feel totally confident about what they’ll see when they check out your URL? Stay tuned for tips and notions about how to get your website mojo workin’. Stella’s here to help you get the job done right.
Mighty thanks to ianturtan for the photo of the dinosaur.
